


And Your Love (Deep Enough to Breathe)

by ShadowsLament



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-05 09:45:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3115484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsLament/pseuds/ShadowsLament
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It was meant to be fun. A game, Jack.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An idle thought -- _If she truly wanted to be, Phryne could be the[Selina Kyle](http://www.comicvine.com/catwoman/4005-1698/) of St. Kilda_ \-- insinuated itself into my mind and spawned other thoughts that came together to produce what we have here: a humbly offered fic, my first in this fandom. 
> 
> If you are kind enough to leave a comment (please do), I will reply after the next chapter has been posted. And if it helps to think of this as a same-time-same-place AU, again, please do. Hmm, what else. The title: I went with a slightly altered lyric from the song "Neon" by Little Deed.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

“Sit down, Miss Fisher.”

Phryne stalked around the table to the single chair tucked beneath the far side. She shrugged off his overcoat and with it the scent of coffee at the collar, of her perfume where the elbow bent. “It was meant to be fun. A game, Jack.” 

Jack turned to close the door, his profile a master class in stone sculpture. “I fail to see how several cases of breaking and entering to rearrange the furniture--”

“Exactly, and that’s all I did, move a few gaudy knick knacks around. Because it was _a game_ ,” she repeated emphatically. “If I’d meant to turn to a life of crime I wouldn’t have left empty-handed.” Her hair shifted when she tilted her head, slicing into the pale expanse of her cheek, sleek, dark tips framing the corner of a bright grin. “I also wouldn’t be here now, because you wouldn’t have caught me.” 

Pacing the length of the interview room, Jack suddenly stopped and braced a shoulder against the wall. He crossed his arms, pinning an indecipherable look on Phryne. “For the sake of the report you’ve now committed me to write, you’re admitting to this last job being badly botched, sloppy even--”

“Sloppy? _Jack_ \--” 

“What you’re saying is that you wanted to be pursued and caught.” Jack’s gaze sharpened. “By me.”

“The objective was to capture your attention, yes.” Phryne rested a bare arm on the back of her chair and toyed with her earlobe, teasing that softly inverted slope with the tip of one finger. She watched as Jack’s incendiary eyes slid from the exposed palm of her hand to her lips, falling to the base of her throat, where a snug collar buttoned at her nape. Lashes of enviable length lowered as he followed the lines of the jet-black rayon she’d had tailored to adhere to her body from shoulder to ankle. Her catsuit, as Dot called it, was missing only a tail. She always left her house armed with some manner of claws. Her mouth twitched before a one-sided smile caught and held. “And it would seem I’ve succeeded.”

“So you have,” Jack said, his voice a hushed song composed of deep and dark notes. When his eyes returned to hers, she denied the urge to press down and rock on the hard seat beneath her, to shift her legs chasing after a hint of friction. “Now that my interest has been thoroughly aroused, what is our next move in this game?”

Phryne opened her mouth, but her thoughts had tangled around Jack’s apparent willingness to not just play along but to take it further. She had anticipated his interest; that, at least, had always been there between them. She had even expected the appearance of a few cracks in his reserve. Standing in front of her bedroom mirror, turning to note how completely the suit clung to every curve, she had imagined how she might slowly, carefully pry those cracks more distinctly apart. 

What she had decidedly not counted on was the hunger on his face; how potent that ravenous expression could be outside the thick copse of a fairy tale forest, worn by a shining light of a man, undiminished by the silently snarling pack of war-thrown shadows at his heels. Her wilder dreams had not prepared her for that.

“Miss Fisher?” Jack said, when she still hadn’t answered. “Don’t tell me you, of all people, didn’t think of how to proceed beyond the first round?”

Rallying, Phryne lifted one slender brow. “With any game one must always be willing to improvise.”

“All right.” Jack sank his hands in his pockets and pushed away from the wall, stepping forward. “Why don’t we start now, with my prize.”

Phryne tracked his slow approach, her breathing shallow, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Jack would never mistake her for prey, but in that moment she wasn’t certain which of them was the fiercer predator. 

“Catching me _was_ your prize.”

“Was it?” He stopped beside her chair and leaned down until a thimbleful of still air stood between his mouth and her ear. Softly, Jack said, “And here I thought it was yours.”

Her fingers twitched, inaudibly rapping the table when he drew back. His thumb circling around the top button on the pitch-black blazer, he pushed it through the narrow loop. Stripping the sleeve from one arm, then the other, Jack tossed the garment on the table. Unhurriedly, he rolled the right cuff of his sleeve up his forearm.

Phryne watched with covetous eyes, and crossed her legs, clenching her thighs when the fluttering in her stomach gave way to a lower, more insistent throbbing. After a steadying breath, when she was certain she could carry it off, she purred, “You’ll need to do more than that, Jack, to level the playing field.”

He glanced at her, his lips curling up. “I’ve only just begun,” he said and inexplicably turned his back on her, heading for the door. He pulled it open wide enough to lean out. “That will be all, Constable Collins. Lock up when you leave.”

Hugh’s tired voice was indistinct, but Phryne thought she heard him wish the Inspector a good night, and then, “Or, no, is it--It’s after midnight. Morning, then.” Determined, no doubt, after a furtive look at the wall clock. Another murmur, this one soft as a sigh, “A long day, sir.”

“It has been. Now get yourself home, Collins,” Jack said with a gruff fondness that somehow made Phryne’s wanting worse. “Grab a few hours of sleep if you can.” He waited, his white-knuckled hand twisting the scarred doorknob, until they both heard Collins’ footsteps recede and fade to silence. A long, tense minute passed before, “Miss Fisher.” Jack turned back into the room. “If you would stand.”

Phryne slowly stood, with a hand pressed flat on the table for support.

Jack’s heavy-lidded eyes raked over the dark of her hair, over the thin woven threads stretched across her chest like armor, like French-made lingerie designed to tease by concealing rather than revealing skin. The tight draw of her nipples was unmistakeable, she knew, outlined in topographical relief. He noticed, because that was Jack’s way. And she felt his observation keenly in every shaking muscle, in how difficult it suddenly was to swallow, to breathe without his lips on her mouth.

“Are you going to just stand there?” she asked and if it came out sharply, it was only because her desire was a knife thrust so deeply inside her, her veins had claimed it as blood. 

“If I’m taking too long to worship you, Miss Fisher, then, by all means,” Jack said, “tell me what you’d have me do instead.”

Phryne’s nerves lit up with a host of possibilities, a packet of kindling thrown onto a bonfire that already blazed. Heat spread, flushing her skin, but she shook her head. “It’s your turn,” she reminded him. “I did, after all, start the game.”

Jack nodded, a tight dip of his head. Under the Midas touch of the overhead light his hair was darkly burnished gold, neatly smoothed back despite the lateness of the hour and their brief tussle in the parlor of the home she’d broken into earlier that night. Right then, more than almost anything, she wanted to see his hair in disarray. Needed her fingers to be responsible for it.

His voice was hoarse, straining towards her while he remained by the closed door. “Are there rules, anything I should be aware of before I make my move?”

Phryne recognized the question for what it was: a way out, one she had no intention of taking. After weighing the risk over an uncharacteristically long time, so many days and weeks colliding into months, she realized that while there might be an unlimited supply of things in the world to doubt, there was also one unequivocal truth: Jack Robinson was worth it. 

With that at the forefront of her mind, the danger inherent to this game seemed minimal, like a foolish excuse, something she’d never been able to abide.

“I can think of only two,” she said and slipped around the table, perching on the ledge. The longline corset she wore beneath the suit nipped at her waist, bit the soft skin sheltered under the swell of her breasts. The sensation was pleasant; she had no doubt it would feel euphoric when it was Jack’s blunt nails, his teeth, becoming so intimately acquainted with her body. “One, you may not hold back.” The muscle at Jack’s jaw tightened and relaxed. His restraint was palpable. She wanted it crumbled to dust at their feet, covered by layers of their clothing. “Two, if an opportunity to play dirty arises, do not hesitate. Take it.” She held out her hand. “I trust you, completely.”

“Phryne.” It was a whisper, a howl. 

A call she could not resist.

Hastily slipping off the table, Phryne met Jack halfway. She reacted as his mirror image: her arms lifting, wrapping tightly around his waist. To keep him close, she slid her hands up his back, the silken side of his vest smoothing her way. Her palms anchored to his shoulders’ shifting blades. His shirt smelled vaguely of fragrant coffee and fresh paper, surprisingly sweet. She wondered, fleetingly, if he had fallen asleep with an open book on his chest. 

While she inhaled Jack’s scent, careful with each intake of breath so that memory could return it to her right and whole, Jack’s fingers left a pathway of prints on her spine and nape. His hand in her hair, he cradled her head. Urged her away from his shoulder with that light grip, coaxing her neck to an angle that bared her throat to his lips.

Her pulse leapt beneath his mouth, the warmth of his tongue on her sensitive skin setting loose a dancing shiver that wouldn’t be contained to her fiercely clinging arms and quickly spread to her restless legs.

“Jack,” she rasped and then, because she’d been too-long patient with accepting the absence of his touch, demanded, “More.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jack held his breath in the hollow of Phryne’s throat. With his eyes closed, the room’s dull light--morning’s encroaching approach--had to work harder to reach him.

There were lessons he learned in the trenches about the fragile nature of dreams: moon-drenched things, they were little more than gossamer threads, spun from and broken by reality. A brutal lesson, and a good reason to embrace the insomniac nights that followed him home. On those rare occasions of late, when sleep claimed a hard-won victory, his dreams had been good. Achingly so: they had been of her. Of close moments, her perfume blooming in the hothouse warmth of tangled hands and legs. Of her mouth, a smear of ravening red on his skin. 

He kept his eyes firmly shut to hold onto his impossible dream a little longer.

“You’re absolutely certain?” He heard them: syllables like a storm, the question jagged as a shipwreck. The sound of his own voice all of a sudden incomprehensible to a man who had more in common with a lighthouse. A man who had been told--by his superiors; by Rosie--that he was steady ground. He had accepted that as truth, an immutable fact, until the day the soft and sleek black cat scratching a sonnet into the clothes on his back set him back on his heels. “Tell me, Phryne. Explicitly.”

A quick consideration of their past supported a quip, perhaps an innuendo; he braced for the sound of her laugh like a bullet discharged. For the moment she slipped from his grasp. 

Phryne held him close, tighter, it seemed, and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. “There’s a...a zipper.”

Jack exhaled, careful, his lungs reluctant to give in to yet another thing as intangible as air: hope.

Freeing his fingers of her hair, he slipped the tips down the coastline of her neck to the first of three pearl-round buttons on the collar. Here, with her, he coveted the tremor that shook her shoulders in the pauses between one unloosed button and the next. His own focus fractured slightly when her warm breath quickened, seeping through cloth to his skin. Undone, he took the zipper’s tab between thumb and forefinger. “And now?”

“Pull it down, Jack.”

Slowly, with a sibilant, single-minded whisper, the zipper’s teeth parted.

Light fingers fluttered, drifted down his shoulder blades to clench muscle. 

The vibration of the low note he hummed sent a tremor down his arm to his hand. Both the zipper and his heartbeat caught. Managing the snag, Jack felt compelled to admit, “I’m not...” 

He stopped to swallow, unsure of how to conclude the thought when there were so many options to choose from, most insistently _Not enough for you_.

Unsurprisingly, Phryne wasn’t content to let it go. “Not what?”

With his palm pressed to the corseted curve of her spine, he breathed in her scent, like peeled-open petals, rain-slicked wildflowers. Sweet and dangerous at once. “Expert at this.”

“Evidence suggests otherwise, Jack. However,” Phryne softly said, “I am more than willing to be your refresher course.”

Stroking fingertips found the sway of her hip; his lips, her temple. He asked, “Where should we begin?”

She pushed up on her toes, the lithe line of her body sliding against his. Phryne had from the very beginning found and filled all of his hollows. Just then she also wove light fingers through his hair. “With a kiss.”

Jack had kissed her once before; he’d relived it countless times after. With his suit jacket surrendered to the back of the chair and paperwork beneath his elbow, he’d lost countless minutes to the memory of her lips: soft and slack with surprise before she kissed him back. Alone in his bed, he only had to recall the sound she had made and his hand tightened, his pace hastened.

Addiction took him quickly, long before her breath had untangled from his.

He eased into this kiss, his thumb on the pulse throbbing with clear intent in her throat. He let himself taste her, learn what made something like a purr catch on her tongue. And before his will could be consumed by the heat of her mouth, he pulled back. Pleased beyond measure when she moved to follow, he didn’t allow it, turning Phryne in his arms so her back touched his chest.

“What are you-- _Oh_ ,” she sighed, when he pushed aside one column of her catsuit, sliding his hand over the swell of her hip and down her stomach. 

He found her bare and wet and their game, as she called it, was nearly finished before it truly began.

“Only you,” he breathed, and, again, it could have meant any one of the things his thoughts latched onto before quickly giving each up as lost. “May I?”

Phryne shifted, attempting to trick his fingers into descent. “You know you can.”

Jack pressed his palm to her stomach. “What is it you want?”

“Touch me-- _God_ , Jack.” Rather than let his fingertip linger on the slick spot that made her hand tremble and clench his forearm, Phryne rolled her hips. Silent and otherwise, her demands had always been clear and concise. He moved his hand; she didn't hesitate to sink down on his finger. “There. There. There.” Jack wondered if she was aware of repeating the word like a mantra as she began to shake, to bend over his wrist, as he pressed in deeper. “Finally.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the slight tease of that ending, but it was for the best (one day, in the far flung future, I might be able to write wolf-whistle- _hnng_ sexy times--until then, this is it). Thank you for reading!


End file.
